1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a print system, a printing method, a printer, a terminal apparatus, and a server for performing a service to output data for printing such as contents, document, or the like to a printer on the basis of position information such as a URL or the like of data such as contents, document, or the like on an information appliance such as cellular phone, PDA, or the like.
2. Related Background Art
Hitherto, to obtain a printed matter from an information appliance (hereinafter, simply referred to as an IA), data such as contents, document, or the like held or displayed in/onto the IA is directly outputted from the IA to a printer.
In the above conventional print system, however, only the data which is obtained by a small screen on the IA and by a memory of a small capacity thereof can be printed. Similarly, as for a printer driver or the like for controlling the printer, since the printer driver with an advanced function cannot be installed, a print output of high quality cannot be obtained.
Further, if the data such as contents, document, or the like to be printed is not held on the IA, there is a case where a necessity of downloading data of a large capacity for printing from a server on a network occurs. There are, consequently, problems such that a burden of a charge for the line is very large, a communicating time becomes long, an electric power consumption of the IA increases, and the like.
If there are the problems on printing from the IA as mentioned above, the troublesome operations such that the worker stores the position information such as a URL or the like of the data to be printed, the data is obtained again into a PC or the like which can be used by the printer and printed, and the like are necessary.
To solve the above problems, in the present invention, the applicant of the invention has proposed a print system such that in order to print data such as contents, document, or the like on the Internet which is obtained by the IA, a print instruction is sent from the IA to the printer, and the printer requests the server to issue the print instruction of the data, receives the data converted into the printing data from the server, and outputs it. According to such a print system, however, it is necessary that the printer is in a state where it is connectable to the Internet.
Since there is a limitation on use such that the printer needs to be in a state where it is connectable to the Internet as mentioned above, if the connection from the printer to the Internet is impossible due to some reasons, a print output cannot be obtained. The print output cannot be obtained either also in the case where the user does not want an administrator of the printer to be burdened with a charge for a connection line to the Internet from the printer.
Further, in the present invention, in case of the above-proposed print system, since the server which accepts a print instructing request from the printer is ordinarily a server which holds contents information, the server holding the contents information needs to have converting means for converting the contents information into the printing data. Therefore, if the server holding the contents information does not have the converting means for converting the contents information into the printing data, the contents information cannot be converted into the printing data.